Noob question about creating a model

I'm creating a small rails app, but getting started on it is the hardest part.

Basically, I know I need a user model, that simply has the attributes of username and password.

But the system works like this: a user logs in, and then can create an 'appeal' to partake in extramural activies by filling out a form. The form consists of stuff like 'location', 'activity', 'insurance code', 'date range', etc. So my question is - is the 'appeal' a model, with each of the questions on the form being an attribute (similar to how user has attributes username and password)? If this is the case, how do I say what each thing is? Like, if in the form it's a radio button, or 2 calendars to select a date range, what data type is that?

I would say yes to the "appeals" being its own model. The way I understand, your models are User, Appeal, Question, Answer. Then you would have the associations between models; User has_many :appeals, Appeal belongs_to :user, Appeal has_many :questions, Question has_many :answers, Question belongs_to :appeal, Answer belongs_to :question.